John 1:1 - "The Word" (6/13/21)

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank You for today. We thank You for Your Word.

Lord, we thank You that it transcends time, culture, who we are, what our pasts are, what we're currently going through, and what our future will be. It transcends all of that, and yet it speaks volumes into our lives, wherever we're at. I thank You that it is not just a book that was written a long time ago that gives some good advice, and that's it; but Lord, Your Word is life.

Your Word is power. Your Spirit goes forth from these very words and churns in our hearts, and reveals different truths to us about who You are and what You want for our lives. It emboldens us to go out into this world and into this community with Your love and with Your message of truth.

So, Lord, I pray that You bless our time this morning, that You bless my mouth, that I would only say what You want me to say—nothing more, nothing less—that Your Word would go forth and bear real fruit in our lives. I pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

When I was a kid, I loved reading mystery novels. Maybe these titles or these series might seem familiar to you. I feel like I must have read every Boxcar Children book and every Bobbsey Twins book in my local library.

Encyclopedia Brown was my jam, and whenever my family would visit my grandparents, I would read the Hardy Boys books there. They used to be my uncle's. I was a walking advertisement for LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow.

I know some of you here are thinking “nerd! ” Every mystery novel has a certain formula that it follows. The characters are introduced, the mystery is introduced, the characters go through some kind of adventure to solve the mystery, and then what?

Outside of that, what's at the end? The big reveal, right? When the characters make this big announcement about who done it and what happened, the whole story is everything unfolding until that big reveal.

This morning, we're starting a series on the Gospel of John. Rather than wait until the very end of his book, however, John makes his big reveal of who Jesus really is at the very beginning of this story. He wants his readers to make no mistake that, as they read about the earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, who He really is goes beyond everything He did and how He was perceived in human understanding.

John's big reveal is known in Bible study as the prologue, which we'll start getting into today—just one verse. But before we do, I just want to give some basic information about why John wrote this book in the first place. That will directly inform our understanding of the book as a whole and as we go through each section of it as well.

You know, I don't know how many of us, as we're reading through our Bibles, really know the background of the books that we're reading, and here's why it's important to know this background: We could not travel back in time from 2021 to the 80s and start talking to them about smartphones, apps, TikTok, and coding. They'd have no clue what we're talking about! Some of you are thinking, “I still have no clue what you're talking about.

” Likewise, a teenager in the 90s couldn't go up to a teenager now and rattle off things about cassette tapes and video rental stores. Even a teenager from the 2000s couldn't gripe to a teenager now about their portable CD player constantly skipping, because a teenager now would respond with, “What's a CD? ” So, in order for us to understand why John, through the Holy Spirit, included what he did in his Gospel and why he wrote it the way he did, we have to know a) when he wrote it and b) what was the world like that he was writing in.

So, first of all, who wrote this book? Well, obviously, as also corroborated by biblical scholarship, one of Jesus' 12 disciples, the Apostle John, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, wrote this book. John was one of the first four disciples that Jesus called to follow Him, and he was originally a fisherman along with his brother James.

Jesus actually coined the nickname “the Sons of Thunder” for John and his brother James. I got a kick out of this—a name that sounds like they were in a motorcycle gang together: the Sons of Thunder. We get an idea of why Jesus nicknamed them this in Luke chapter 9.

When Jesus knew that He had to start honing in on His earthly ministry, heading towards the cross and His subsequent ascension, Luke tells us that He sent messengers ahead of Him, and they entered a Samaritan village. Remember, the Samaritans didn't like the Jewish people, and vice versa. When the Samaritans in that specific village rejected Jesus coming to stay there, John and James said, “Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?

” In their humanity, John and James were like those friends you had growing up or maybe still have, who always take everything one step too far, right? You have those people in your life where you're talking with them, and you say, “Hey, so-and-so messed with me,” and they just start getting up and say, “Well, I'm going to go beat them up; that's what I'm going to do. ” So, in his humanity, John was one you did not want to mess with.

But as we'll see, especially in this Gospel, Jesus transforms John into a person who's so in tune with the things of God that… As he's hanging on the cross, Jesus commits the care of his own mother into the hands of John, who was one of the closest three disciples to Jesus. He's one of the three to see his transfiguration. Jesus knew just how much of an impact John was going to have.

Jesus saw beyond who John was when he first met him and to who he was going to transform him into. Jesus knew just how much of an impact John was going to have on the world for the gospel message. God took John's inherent personal strength of personality and wildness and honed it to boldness for Jesus in the midst of a dangerous world.

In the rest of the New Testament, John, along with Peter, stands up to the entire Jewish governing council known as the Sanhedrin, and when they commanded that they stop preaching about Jesus, John and Peter said, "What was their response? We're not going to do that. We will obey the commands of God, not men.

" And while John is exiled away from all of his family, his friends, his church family, and, in short, his entire earthly support system, Jesus reveals to John all that will happen in the last days, recorded for us by John as the Book of Revelation. So, John is a major, major, major factor in the explosion of Christianity across the ancient world. While not canonical, many early church fathers believe that John ministered in Ephesus some time after Paul had founded that church and wrote this gospel while he was still in Ephesus.

In fact, it was written that a man named Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John, and it was passed on to Polycarp's disciple, Irenaeus. This is what Irenaeus wrote down: "John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast, had himself published a gospel during his residence in Ephesus in Asia. " So, the evidence is pretty strong that John wrote this gospel while he was living in Ephesus following the Apostle Paul's founding of the church there.

Now, why did John write this gospel? John actually gives that answer toward the end of this book, in John chapter 20, verses 30 through 31. He writes, "So then, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these that he did record have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

" That is the entire purpose for him writing this gospel. He didn't wake up one day and say, "I just want to record everything down. " See, he had a specific purpose in writing this.

Some biblical scholars have theorized that John was writing to combat the teaching of the Pharisees, who had grown very powerful by the time he wrote this book. Others say it was the heretical teaching of a group known as the Gnostics, who believed one needed secret knowledge to even know God. But the purpose that John gives himself makes it very plain: he's writing this book to give us as evangelistic an account of Jesus's ministry as possible.

Whereas the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, give more emphasis on the historical Jesus and him as the Jewish Messiah, John emphasizes both the historical Jesus and Jesus as God, Jesus's humanity, and Jesus's deity. What's more is that in this book, John gives the Greek equivalent of Hebrew sayings, which suggests that John is writing to both people who are Jewish in background and people who are Gentile in background, seeing as Ephesus was a major city in the Roman Empire and therefore quite diverse. John wants to get the news about Jesus out to as many people from as many different backgrounds as possible.

In a lot of ways, the Gospel of John is the most evangelistic of the four gospels, and that was John's point in writing it. Through people reading this book and circulating it from Ephesus to other places in the Roman Empire, both Jewish and Gentile in background, John wanted as many people as possible to put their faith in Jesus. That makes this gospel a very special book.

Furthermore, most likely John wrote this gospel somewhere in the late 80s to early 90s A. D. Now, why is this important?

Does anyone remember what major historical event happened in Jerusalem in the year 70 A. D. ?

The destruction of Jerusalem—the destruction of the temple. Most importantly, the Great Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. The only wall that remains today from that temple is the Western Wall, known today as simply the Wailing Wall.

That was the turning point in Jewish history. To this very day, the Jewish people lament that destruction and go regularly to pray at the Wailing Wall for the restoration of the temple. Sadly, many Jewish people don't see that Jesus himself is the restoration of the temple.

Here's why this is important to John's gospel. That major historical event, the destruction of the temple: the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, along with the Book of Acts, were all most likely written before the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A. D.

The Apostle Paul was even executed before 70 A. D. , in 65 A.

D. So by the time 85 to 95 A. D.

rolls around, a lot has changed in the early church, especially for those of Jewish faith and ethnicity. The Great Temple in Jerusalem has been annihilated and has been lying in ruins for at least 15 years by the time John has written his gospel, and the great Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, has been dead for at least 20 years. By the time John writes this gospel, there are many enemies of the church seeking.

. . To destroy it for 20 years already, the Roman Emperor Domitian, since the great Roman fire of 64 A.

D. , has been actively persecuting and slaughtering as many Christians as his government could find. Since the destruction of the temple in 70 A.

D. , the Jewish world as a whole did not want to have anything to do with a sect of Judaism that claimed a man from Nazareth was the Jewish Messiah, a king who superseded the Roman Emperor. You see why they want to distance themselves from people who put their faith in somebody who superseded Caesar.

Furthermore, the Pharisees had grown so powerful at this point in Judaism that they became the lead religious authority within it, and they had actually officially included a curse on any sects of Judaism specifically targeting Jewish Christians in an official Jewish prayer. What a world for the church to exist in! You think it's hard to win people to Christ and add additional people to a church in America now?

Try seeking to win people to Christ and add additional people to the church in the ancient Roman world. At that point, people were fearing for their lives. It's no wonder then that God had John, a man who had been a disciple of Jesus himself and who then devoted the rest of his life to building up the church, write a new gospel that was primarily evangelical in nature, purpose, and message.

Not only to bolster the faith of those who were already believers but to win even more people in that dark, dangerous, and evil world for Christ. So, it's only fitting that in this world and in this country that we are now in, as believers in Jesus, whose future in dealing with persecution is unsure and unknown, who are coming out of an incredibly difficult and strange time in our nation's history, and in a time where many people are ripe to hear the gospel, we are going through this incredibly special and crucially relevant book. It's my prayer, personally, as I preach through this—as the one who will preach through this book—that it will not only bolster the faith of you who hear these messages but that you will bear these verses like the light from torches into this dark world, ripe for the harvest of souls.

We will all witness a harvest, a movement, and a revival unlike any other. So, with all of that in mind, let's turn to John chapter 1, verse 1. If you brought your Bible with you today, please turn to that.

Again, it's the fourth book in the New Testament. Keep flipping forward: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. If you're having trouble finding it, look it up in the table of contents or ask a neighbor.

I want us all to see this. We're just going to be covering one verse today: John chapter 1, verse 1. Within this one verse is a wealth of information about who Jesus is: John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

" All of the other three gospels start off by placing Jesus in his historical context. As pointed out by one biblical scholar, Matthew starts off by including Jesus in his historical genealogy, connecting him to Abraham, the father of Israel, and David, the Messiah's royal bloodline predecessor. Mark starts off by placing Jesus in the historical context of John the Baptist's ministry, and Luke starts off with Jesus's and John the Baptist's historical births.

In a way, John also places Jesus in his historical context, but the historical context of something that happened thousands of years before his earthly birth. That type of historical context, more so, John's introduction is theological and is that big reveal of who Jesus really is. Here's why: The Greek philosophers from hundreds of years before John wrote this gospel taught that the universe was held together by this overarching force called reason.

You see Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle basing all of their teachings on this concept of reason that held the universe together and dictated what happened in the universe and how humans understand the universe. So keep that Greek philosophical concept in mind as we move forward. Separately, many Jewish rabbis had been teaching for hundreds of years a concept taken out of the Old Testament book of Proverbs known as wisdom.

In fact, Proverbs itself personifies this concept of wisdom. We see that in Proverbs 8:11: "For wisdom is better than jewels, and all desirable things cannot compare with her. " Proverbs personifies this concept of wisdom, and further on in Proverbs 7:4: "Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.

" They personify this concept of wisdom. Eventually, rabbis combined this personified concept of God's wisdom with the law, or the word of God, thereby making the law or the word of God also personified. Furthermore, the Jewish philosopher Philo, who died about 35 to 40 years before John wrote this gospel, combined that already established Jewish understanding of the personified wisdom and word of God with the Greek philosophy of the overarching concept of reason that held the universe together.

I know this is a bit much, but stay with me; you're going to see where I'm going with this. Talk about God orchestrating things in human history to be perfect for the gospel! Paul wrote in Galatians 4 that God lined up everything in human history to be perfect for Jesus to be born and for the subsequent apostles to take the gospel message all over the ancient Roman world.

Now, we can also see how God perfectly lined everything up in human history for John to write this gospel. And this is it: everything I just went through is leading up to this point, everyone living. .

. In the ancient Roman world, whether Jewish or Greek, Gentile and background would have understood some kind of concept of a personified idea of wisdom or reason holding the universe together, thereby dictating what happened in that universe. That personified concept was already referred to by everyone in the ancient Roman world by the Greek word "Logos," or "Word.

" Now we come to John 1:1, with John describing Jesus as "the Word. " The entire Roman world was already ripe for John to declare, "Let me tell you what, or rather who, this overarching wisdom, reason, truth, force that holds the universe together—who you've already personified metaphorically—who this really is. It's not just a personified concept; it's an actual person.

This Logos, this Word, who I'm about to describe in more detail throughout the rest of this book, is an actual person. And yes, he holds the universe together and dictates what happens in it, and he's the very revelation of the wisdom of God, and I'm about to tell you who this person is. " Furthermore, and you've heard me reference this before, what does the very first part of this first verse sound eerily familiar to?

"In the beginning," Genesis 1:1—the very first verse of the entire Bible: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. " By John starting out his gospel with the very first three words is no accident; he does this entirely on purpose. That is the ultimate point in John starting off his gospel the same exact way the Jewish scriptures—those that had existed for about 1,500 years by that point—started out with.

Not only was there this established general understanding in the entire Roman world about this wisdom, reason, or Word that held the universe together, but this same Word created the entire universe and therefore holds it all together. John will go on in a couple of verses to point-blank make that statement, but for now, John is establishing three foundational truths about this person called "the Word. " Number one: This person was there in the beginning.

"In the beginning was the Word. " The beginning of what? His own beginning?

The beginning of God? No, our beginning—the universe's beginning. John is obviously connecting this with the creation of the heavens and the earth, so this person was around at the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth.

He didn't just appear as an infant around 4-5 B. C. during the reign of Herod the Great, born to an unwed teenage girl named Mary.

He didn't just appear out of thin air around the time of John the Baptist's ministry; he was around at the very beginning—the very creation of the universe. In fact, as John will reveal in a couple of verses, this person was the very way, the very method God even created everything that exists. Because this person was around at the time of the creation of the universe, who else must he have been with?

Since all God-fearing Jewish people knew it was God who created the universe, this person was also with God. That's the second truth John establishes here: "The Word was with God. " You might say, "So what?

" Well, what is John saying by making this statement? Firstly, not only by saying that this person was around at least thousands of years prior to John writing this at the time of the creation of the universe but also stating that this person was with God at that point; John is revealing that this person is at the very least supernatural. At the very least, he exists outside of human time and transcends the universe.

He had a hand in creating. What John is also revealing here is the affirmation of a theological truth that had already been believed for decades before him writing this, and that was the truth of the Trinity—God existing in three persons, and as one: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There was already, albeit primitive, evidence of that also in the very first book of the Bible: "And God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image to be like us.

'" The way it's written in Hebrew, he's not talking to anybody else other than himself within the Trinity. We have evidence of the Trinity in the very first book of the New Testament to be chronologically written, in the letter written by the Apostle James: "James, a bond servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ: therefore be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. " Again, he uses that term to describe Jesus Christ as an example: "Brothers and sisters of suffering and patience.

Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord," who could only be God the Father. You can see that James uses the title "Lord" interchangeably to refer to both God the Father and Jesus. This letter was only written about 10 to 15 years after Jesus ascended back to heaven.

Isn't that cool? Again, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity had already existed for decades before John penned these words. But for him to have written them, he was making the point of further affirming that truth.

John, as an official disciple of Jesus himself, commissioned as an apostle by Jesus himself at his ascension, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, was confirming that the doctrine of the existence of God as three in one in perfect communion was true. Not only was John affirming that doctrine, but what else was he doing? He was stating point-blank that the person he's referring to was in perfect communion with the Father, and therefore a member of the Trinity of God.

John will later specify in this gospel that, in fact, this person is the second person. Of the Trinity, the Son of God. See, it's one thing to state that this person was around at the beginning of the universe and another to state that he's in perfect communion with the Father.

But then, to leave no doubt whatsoever, John makes his third point: he then states that this person, this Word, is God. Leave no doubt to it: and the Word was God. This is the plainest and therefore clearest way John could have written it.

Some heretical cults do some linguistic gymnastics and try to make this seem like it's saying, "and the Word was a lower-case g god" to make this verse say this makes Jesus less than God and not equal to God. The two most famous cults to do this are the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons. Stay away from publications from the Watchtower Society and the New World Translation of the Bible put out by the Jehovah's Witnesses, and stay away from anything having to do with the so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is, in fact, the Mormon Church.

Even though the world and religious experts like to lob these two cults in with Christianity because they hold this belief, they have absolutely nothing to do with true biblical Christianity. Stay away from them. Not only does this translation make no contextual sense—"and the Word was a god"—because it translates the rest of verse 1 and verse 2 as if nothing else is different, but it makes no linguistic sense since there's nothing in the original Greek to signal a change in the grammar.

Like I said, it takes a willful manipulation of the text and some linguistic gymnastics to make what verse 1 say anything other than what is plainly written: "and the Word was God. " John wrote "and the Word was God" and absolutely meant to write "and the Word was God. " Anyone who writes or teaches otherwise is just plain wrong, and dangerously so.

This person, who is the Word, who had a part in the creation of the world, is not only a part of the Trinity, but he is equal in existence, being, essence, nature, power, will, and eternality with God the Father. Anything God the Father is, Jesus also is. That is what John is making the plain and clear declaration of when he says, "the Word was God.

" He's not making any accident; he's not saying anything other than what he's plainly written here: the Word was God. Before John can say anything else about Jesus, he has to make that truth abundantly clear. Why?

Because our entire salvation rests on that truth: that Jesus is God. John had to start his Gospel with establishing Jesus as the God-man, because without both of those natures, God and man, we as humans would have no hope of being saved from our sins. The whole rest of John's Gospel will build on this foundation of John 1:1.

For now, we must also acknowledge that the Word that already existed in the Greek, that both those of Jewish background and Gentiles in John's day understood, both the wisdom and the Word of God, along with that reason that holds the universe together, was "Logos" or "Word. " It meant exactly as it means today: message or words. The word "Word" means word; right?

Words, speaking something, messages, and specifically in connection with creation, which we already talked about, which John was obviously connecting to the Word of God. God created the universe with what? His words, His voice.

He said, "Let there be light," "Let there be," "Let there be," "Let there be," and it was so. The only creations not spoken into existence were the land animals and birds and the pinnacle of God's earthly creation: man and woman. Those He got down on His hands and knees—metaphorically speaking—got down into the dirt and formed man out of the dirt.

It was only into man, and therefore a woman, however, that separated them from all the rest of creation that God breathed the spirit of life into and imbued with a soul. John will reveal in verse 3 that these words by God, then, that resulted in creation are embodied by the Word, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That never changed throughout the whole rest of the history of the universe.

Jesus is the embodiment of the words of God, from creation to God speaking to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; to God giving the Law to Israel through Moses; to God speaking to and through the prophets; to Jesus's messages; to the Gospels, letters, and prophecy in the New Testament. All of it is embodied by Jesus. Therefore, following and obeying Jesus is inextricably connected to the entire Word of God.

To follow Jesus is to follow what God recorded for us through the prophets and the apostles in the Scriptures. And here's why that's important: when Jesus says in John 14:15, "If you love me, obey my commandments," He doesn't just mean His specific commandments. He means all the commandments He fulfills in Himself and reiterates through the apostles.

This gives the ultimate meaning to when we read the Bible; we're reading the words of God recorded through humans, but we're also connecting, in a very real spiritual way, to Jesus Himself. And when we strive to follow the Word of God, we're following Jesus as one of His disciples. See, you can't just say, "I believe in Jesus" or "I love Jesus" and not want to have anything to do with listening to anything that's in His Word, or else, according to John 14:15 in that Gospel, you don't actually love Him.

That's a pretty hard truth to swallow, but it's the truth. God has given us Jesus, the God-man, our only hope of salvation. None of us can earn our way to God.

And therefore, heaven on our own; our only hope rests in Jesus, as God, living a sinless life and sacrificing Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. Our only hope rests in Jesus, as God, rising again from the dead in order to offer to us the gift of repenting of our sin and asking Him for forgiveness, and being reconciled to God. No matter what chaos, no matter what darkness, no matter what persecution, no matter what pain we experience in this world, know this for sure.

As John wanted his original readers to know, the creator of the universe is the same one who holds everything in this universe together and loves you so much that He sacrificed Himself so you can spend an eternity with Him. That’s what John—his entire purpose, his entire point to writing this gospel—is. We're going to explore what all of that means as we work our way through this gospel, but for now let us take our minds off of what is right in front of us and put it on the one who transcends time and space, but broke through into human history, into human time, into human space, to have a relationship with Him.

And may we live the rest of our lives for Him and give Him all the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for this gospel. We thank You for what led up to the writing of this gospel: very painful, dark, difficult circumstances. Most, if not all, of us sitting right here or watching online are going through a painful, dark, and difficult time.

We need Your word; we need You, Lord. I thank You for all of the theological truth and foundation that You reveal to us about who Jesus really is—that big reveal right in the very first verse of the gospel of John. May all of us make that the foundation of our lives: In the beginning was Jesus.

Jesus is with God, and Jesus is God. He is our only hope of salvation; He is our only hope of heaven. I pray that if there's anybody here or watching online who has not taken that time, made that commitment, asked You for forgiveness of their sins, repented of their sins, made You their Savior and the King over the rest of their lives, I pray they will do that right now.

We know that Your word says that Your Holy Spirit immediately indwells us at that point, starts to go to work on our hearts and our lives, transforming them, bringing them into line with what You know is best for us, and making us more and more into the likeness of who You are. Lord, I pray that as we move forward into this week, these words would stick with us and empower us to do the work that You have for us to do this upcoming week—in caring for our families, raising our families in the faith and knowledge of the Lord, in working the jobs that You've given us to do as if we're working for You, and in sharing You with one more person—sharing the hope of Jesus with one more person. I pray that Your Holy Spirit would go forth and lead the way for us this upcoming week.

In Jesus' name, Amen.